The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2014

18 JULY-AUGUST 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL strated competence” that the Foreign Service Act requires the department send to the Senate for each nominee. The White House has now agreed to make those certificates public, thanks to AFSA’s effort. But while that is a small step toward greater transparency, the certificates of competence will not be the smoking gun that proves a nomi- nee’s incompetence. These certificates are, in reality, one-page summaries of the kind of basic biographic information that any Google search would produce. The lack of foreign policy credentials of the Norway, Hungary and Argentina nominees was obvious, but drew little attention. It took the videotape of their hearings to create the controversy. Recognizing that, the State Department has put out a solicitation to hire a contractor to prepare nominees for congressional testimony. So the hearings may be less of an obstacle for the incompetent in the future. Predicting Success and Failure A bad hearing may not be a good predictor of who will fail as an ambassa- dor, however. Many will argue that is not the case and insist that knowledge of the language, history and culture of a coun- try is essential. But that knowledge, with the exception of fluency in the language, can be acquired fairly quickly. Moreover, the lack of such knowledge does not irrefutably portend failure. If aspiring ambassadors realized that their performance will be measured and that their failures could become very public, theymight think twice about buying the job if their only qualification is the size of their checkbook. The November 2014 Foreign Service Journal will include a list of recently published books by Foreign Service-affiliated authors. FS authors whose books have been published in 2013 or 2014, and have not been previously featured in the roundup, are invited to send a copy of the book, along with a press release or backgrounder on the book and author, to: Susan B. Maitra Managing Editor Foreign Service Journal 2101 E St NW Washington DC 20037 Email: maitra@afsa.org Deadline for submissions is Sept. 5. CALLING ALL FS AUTHORS!